The Unnamed adventures of Roger Weaver

Chapter 2

The Story

The Authors

Sniff! Sniff! Sniff! Roger felt something wet in his ear.
Snort! He opened his eyes and it was daylight. The snout
of a large boar-like creature met his gaze. He was suddenly wide
awake, woken from a deep slumber by the snorting and sniffing of
a herd of wildebeastes that had roamed in and caught him napping.
Giraffe meat must have as much tryptophan as Turkey he thought to
himself. After stuffing his gord with meat he had found it hard to
keep his eyes open and dozed off several yards away from the carcass,
which was now being consumed and picked at by very large birds.

pH

He lie still while the creature in it's curiousity sniffed and rooted
around his being. Prodding, nuzzleing, making little nips at his
clothing, the boar tried to decide whether this oddity was another
food source. In his course of investigation he again moved toward
Roger's face. Fearing a nip out of his cheek Roger found himself
having to make a quick decision. A shout or harsh move could have
set the animal into an attack mode. But as the creature sniffed toward
Roger's face he suddenly turned his face directly toward the creature
and made a harsh sniffing noise himself. The boar was surprised at
this turn of events. He drew his head back startled but looked keenly
at Roger unmoving. Again Roger made a snifing sound as though he
too were of the same species. The boar was puzzled by this behavior.
Roger glanced out of the corner of his eye to see that the other
beasts were meandering off having grabbed what food they could from
the scene and dragging it away with them. Only this fellow was staying
in close range. Realizing he had momentarily confused the creature,
Roger very slowly began to lift his head and shoulders from the ground
never breaking eye contact with the boar. Knowing what had saved
him up to that moment was not showing fear, he again sniffed in the
direction of the creature's snout. His heart was pounding so hard
he felt like the animal had to hear it. The boar turned it's head
slightly to the side not sure that it wanted to be identified by
this strange thing it did not recognize. Roger lifted himself a little
further again sniffing in the direction of the creature. The boar
again ever so slightly turned his head a little further from Roger's
advance.

T. Tillman

~*~
"Cut!"
The director looked at the actor, and the boar, and decided it was
all a great big bore.
"This will never do!" he exclaimed.

jules

"I'm looking for emotion, people." He continued on in this vain for
a great deal of time, ending (finally) on his knees in tears.

none

Realizing himself in imminent danger, Roger snapped himself from this
cinematographic reverie as a plan began to form in his mind.

Philip

He sized the boar up. "You're pretty squat there, fella. Fat, too.
Stubby legs. I ain't scared a you. And Hell, at least you're not
one a them confounded Fictional Five wenches, them busybody womens
who don't know when to keep their noses outta a story where they
ain't wanted. I drives a man plumb crazy, it do!" He wiped the sweat
from his forehead. The boar finished its snuffling and rooting among
the stinking rmeains of the giraffe, surveyed Roger with a look of
undisguised malice, lowered its head and prepared to charge.

Philip

For some reason the only thing Roger could think about was the old
joke about how do you stop a rhino from charging. Unfortunately,
this was neither the time nor the place for that joke, so instead
he squared his shoulders and cleared his throat, "Knock, knock," he said.

vanblah

The boar paused for a moment looking Roger over suspiciously. It clawed
the earth in front of it restlessly waiting for Him to continue.
"Umm... I said, "Knoc, Knock" continued Roger nervously.The boar
let loose a steamy snort that Roger interpreted to mean "Who's there?"

spackle

Frantically combing through the dented cardboard box labelled Knock-Knock Jokes inb the basement of Roger's
memory, he mananged to emit a weak "Water,"
"Water who?" snorted back the boar with marked impatience.
"Water you think that is coming towards us?" he said, pointing
toward the stand of trees directly behind the boar. While the boar
turned to look, and stood there, dumbly, looking at the absolute
nothing that was coming towards them, not getting the joke which
had been played on him, and when he turned back to Roger to express
his puzzlement, he found, of course, that Roger, that sly trickster,
had long since stolen into the undergrowth and fled the scene.

Philip

Old Boar's eyes narrowed. He didn't take well to being made to look
foolish, even if the only witnesses were a ratty pair of Wikka birds
snacking on rancid giraffe entrails. He had a reputation to keep.
"Venegence will be mine!" he snorted to no one in particular but
in the general direction of the disinterested Wikka birds. "Ere this
day is out I'll be chewing on your insides!" Boar didn't really mean
it, but appearances needed to be upheld. Law of the jungle and all
that.With a little shake of his tail Boar proceeded to trot off
in the opposite direction from Roger.

spackle

Roger, meawhile, trudging through the bush and sniggering to himself,
suddenly found himself in the midst of an unearthly quiet. He stopped.
The sun was getting high, and it was hot. All around him the
baobob trees writhed up from the ground like Rodin's damned fixed
in the postures of agony at the maw of Hell. No birds disturbed the
silence, not even the chatty parrots, and even the monkeys were silent.
He looked around himself. He became aware of an incredible radiance,
seeming to beat from the very center of things. The sun pulsed on
him, The air whirled in his lungs. His heartbeat raced and his breath
came in short, rapid gasps. He thought of Anita, then, back in gritty
Manhattan; What the hell is happening to me? he thought, seeing
varicolored TV snow dancing in the air around him. Am I going
to die here? In a strange land, friendless, surrounded by savages...?"
And it was then, strangely, as if in answer to Roger's unvoiced thought,
that the voice boomed down (from whence, he was unable to identify): "NO! You shall not die here, young man! We have
other things planned for you!"

Philip

There was a small metallic whir from the gnarled trunk of a boabob
tree a dozen steps to Roger's left. A door popped open revealing
an apparent elevator with bright red shag carpeting floor to ceiling.
It appeared unoccupied."Get in" boomed the disembodied voice.

spackle

Roger step in and presses the number 13
The elevator rises

none

In fact the whole tree rose, leaving a scorched spot in the brush
and scattering the lazy Wikka and Jub-jub birds lazily dozing on
its branches.

spackle

Inside the trunk of the old tree it was so dark that Roger couldn't
see a thing. He could certainly feel, though — sticky! Everywhere
was slippery-gooey with a substance the consistency of vaseline petroleum
jelly. Only the smell of it — sheesh! Hooo-eee!

Philip

Being trapped inside the tree, Roger couldn't escape the gooey matter
and was soon covered head to toe with the stuff. Some of it got
into his mouth and it tasted worse than it smelled. The tree finally
came to a landing, Roger had no idea where, and the door in it's
trunk opened. Roger stepped out of the trunk and immediately tripped
on a tree root. He fell headlong into a great pile of goose feathers
and down which stuck fast to the gooey stuff that coated the poor
man. Behind him he could hear the tree close it's door and fly away.

cuddles

A cluster of feather stuck fast to the five-day growth of moustache
beneath his nose caused him to ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah — chooooooooooooooooo!
This was answered by a sinister, reverbed giggle from somewhere off
to his left, and then a second giggle from his right.
"Show yourself!" he demanded, wiping curdily glutinous feather-pudding
from his eyes. Show yourself...ow yourself...elf...elf...elffffff
came the echo. From the sound of it, he seemed to be in a large,
cavernous interior. Tee-hee-hee-hee-hee, came the giggle again,
and Ti-hii-hii-hii-hii, came its response.
Roger was really getting angry, and a vitrioic tirade quivered at
the tip of his tongue, when a great booming voice, the same one he'd
heard outside the magic baobab tree, thundered through the room so
thunderfully that before Roger knew it he was on the floor, cowering
among the gooey shmeg and feathers. SILENCE! SILENCE! Silence ye little fools, raritans,
and nin-com-poops! Silence, I command you, or suffer my wrath!
it boomed, as a great, glowing, disembodied face began to
materilaize from out of the fog and goosedown.

Philip

Injun Joe couldn't believe his eyes. Breaking into the Observatory
had been easy enough.
But 4 hours of work with a tomahawk hadn't made a dent in the file
cabinet. Cursing and
punching it he discovered it hadn't been locked! Oops!
What had him rubbing his eyes in disbelief was the folder of fridge
magnet poetry kept by
the astronomer. The first folder Injun Joe had opened was dated January
26, 1995. The
"poetry" he read there seemed to have prophesied the next 4 years
of his disgusting and
empty life! Joe gulped and read it again...
Magnetic Poems 26 January 1995

1.
one two we heave our thousand diamonds
I incubate on your honey chocolate breast
worship the repulsive sausage of death with me
go go frantic goddess
you are the sweet pink apparatus of my water vision
& the bitter language screaming from my sleepy tongue

2.
picture my peach
a powerless purple
languid yet enormous
shot through with stormy lather
I moan a symphony of fiddle music

As the hologram disappeared from the churning befeathered fog filling
the room (through Roger's dimly returning vision) poor Roger shook
his head in a gesture of defeated disbelief. It was always something
they were showing you that you were expected to understand, be they
scientists, poets, politicians or missionaries, always some string
of words or length of video of which we — you, me, the little folks,
the man on the street, the meek still waiting to inherit the goddamned
earth — were supposed to make both head an tail of, a trult impossible
task since the messages sent us were, increasingly as the years sped
past, equivalent to this feathery goo in which I am presently so
uncomfortably mired — that is to say, possessing neither head nor
tail among its consituent elements, I shall not waste the effort
trying to make head or tail of it. He sighed...
At which the bulbous, glowing head remanifested itself out of the
blur of fog and feathers and, with rubbery lips appearing to expend
great effort into the pronouncing of the syllables falling thickly
through the atrophied muscles of its aged maw, once again spoke in
the harsh blue glottals of its accent: "ROGER WEAVER! We have for thee a task! Though
not without peril, the rewards at its completion are considerable,
and no longer would you find yourself forced to work those humiliating
temp-clerical and telemarketing jobs! You would be wealthy until
the end of your days. What say you, mortal?"
"What do I have to do?" squeaked Roger. "Killing and eating that rancid
giraffe was bad enough! I think I got a tapeworm from it..." "SILENCE! Enough of your petty maledictions —
I am speaking here of the Fates of two worlds, yours and mine, inextricably
interwoven in time and space and collagen! The clocks of doom are
ticking away, and the sinister monkey of our races' twin demises
sits upon both our backs, eating peanuts and throwing the shells
where it will! There is no time for you to dilly-dally? What say
you, human shellfish of a sponge-mop?"
"Uh — I guess so. But — do I get to meet a princess? Huh? Can
you at least guarantee that." "If you insist."
"She's gotta be attractive, too, dude. No ugly princesses for this
giraffe-killer." "Your wish is my command."
"Cool beans, daddy-o! When do I start?"
The head merely sighed, and, motioning for the overstimulated Roger
to follow, turned and bobbed off into the darker recesses of the place.

Philip

T.Tillman, the cheery troglodyte, whipped the trult out of his bag
and began cramming it deep into the empty cranium of Roger. Roger's
head began shaking like it did when his Mommy put more cat puke on
the tray of his high chair. No, no, no. It had not passed his visual
inspection. "No, Mommy, NO!" The waves of nausea began passing over
him again. Fish guts. Fish oil. Why did she insist on feeding the
kitty sea food? Oh, Roger had become an expert on what was passed
before his gaze. He thought it all was coming his way again. More
rancid cat puke. The Head of All Bodyless Heads had decided the time
had come to replace the beeswax and sawdust with a genuine trult!
Roger had no way of knowing it, but henceforth and forever his "shitte
wouldde sinketh likek any Mortall Mannes!"

Tom L.

"What was that?!" Roger cried out, waving his arms frantically over
his head. "Were those bats?" "No, no, it was only me," Roger recognized
the voice as that of the disembodied head but now not so booming.
"For some reason that I haven't yet been able to explain, changing
from a godlike apparition into a less imposing human form causes
hallucinations - not unlike those caused by magic mushrooms - in
all those who witness it. Sorry." the man shrugged. Roger could
only stare at the man and the man became visibly uncomfortable as
the silence lingered. Finally, he cleared his throat. "I guess
I should introduce myself. I'm Pope John Paul Georgeanringo II."
"You can't be the Pope." Roger said. "Why not?" "Because
the old Pope hasn't died yet." Roger was beginning to doubt the
intelligence of this being.
"What old Pope?" the Pope asked.
"There's only one Pope! You know, the guy that's so close to God
that he rides around in a bullet proof golf cart! The Pope - THE
Pope!"
"Oh, that guy." said the Pope, nodding to himself. "He's a fake.
But enough of all that, we have a job to do."

cuddles

It occurred to Roger that a disembodied head has a very difficult
time actually shrugging but for some reason he decided to keep these
thoughts to himself. They continued in silence for several moments
until Roger spoke timidly, "I already have a job." Pope John Paul
Georgeanringo II sighed theatrically but said nothing. Roger continued,
"It's just that when you say 'we have a job to do' it reminds me
of a superhero from some old comic book, and they frighten me."
The Pope eyed Roger wearily, "You mean the thought of this as yet
unmentioned job frightens you?" Roger considered his words carefully,
"No, old comic books frighten me. The ink gives you cancer ..."

vanblah

"Oh, so it's cancer you're worried about — hold on a sec, now
where the hell did I put that damn thing...?" The Pope (whose body
now appeared in tandem with the dispersing of the fog and the visual
manifestation of the room, a dusty workshop long since given over
to overwhelming clutter) tossed multiple cellphones of sleek black
or gunmetal grey willy-nilly behind himself, digging deeper and deeper
into the piles of rubbish and cable-wire, disemboweled portable CD
players and vaguely familiar remotes. "A-ha!" he said, at last. "Here
she is: The Red Cellphone!"
"The Red Cellphone?" queried Jake. "What's so special about that?
Don't they come in Happy Meals now?"
"No, no, absolutement no, my erring boy, those are iMacs that
come in the Happy Meals (I've collected all twelve of them myself),
while this —" holding up the ordinary-looking Red Cellphone — "This
puppy is my direct, toll-free line to —" He pointed with ritualistic
solemnity at and through the ceiling, nodding knowingly at Roger.
"The Big Guy."
"You mean — Ronald McDonald?" gasped Roger, feeling fingers
of static hop like electrified lice up and down the nape of his neck.
"Sssshhhh — we just say R. around here. He gets upset if you use his
full name. So, anyway — it's cancer you say you're worried about?"
Roger nodded. "What's you're Social Security Number?" Roger told
him. Pope John Paul Georgeandringo II dialed a number from memory
on the cell-phone and listened to the other end of it ring.
"Brian?" he shouted.
Roger couldn't hear the other end of the conversation.
"Yeah, Johnpaulgeorgeandringo II here... Listen, can you check on
somebody for me? Great, great...Yeah, here goes...041...65...9971...Yeah,
that's him, Weaver, Roger...What? When? Oh, really? Well,
I'll be dipped in pigshit...No, no, that's not a request, Brian,
I just meant, you'd just never guess from looking at him...Ha ha
ha — alright, listen, I gotta go, we have a Code Red here — no, howbout
Sunday...brunch? The Blue Water Grill? Great, great. Okay. No, Brian
— no, I told you, of course I'm taking my medication...Yes...I
swear to God... Gotta go...I'll see you Sunday."
He hung up then and turned impishly to Roger. "Nothing to fear, my
boy. There's no cancer in the works for you." He chuckled and turned
away abruptly, before Roger had a chance to question him further.
"Let's get going," he called. "We haven't even started yet..."

Philip

"Was that THE Brian?" Roger asked, a little awe-struck.

vanblah

The little Astrukh Roger was looking at noticed pee pee dribbling
down Roger's left trouser leg and, folding his hands complacently
within the long-sleeved Mandarin garment he was wearing, bowed his
head ever-so slightly towards Roger.
"What is left of honorable brain seems to be dribbling down honorable
pant leg!
Ah, so...Most unfortunate..."

Tom L.

"Well, yeah. Didn't you see me using the red cellphone?" The Pope
rolled his eyes and shook his head disdainfully. "Humans, sheesh!"
he said, not even trying to hide his disdain from Roger. "What?
I was just asking." said Roger. "Well come on, it's time to get
going." said Pope John Paul Georgeandringo II."Wait, can't I
get this feather and goo off me first?" asked Roger. "No, you'll
be needing that for protection." the Pope explained. "Protection?
From what?" "It's better if I don't tell you." "Why not?"
Roger was getting nervous. "Just trust me." said the Pope.
"Well where are we going?" Roger pressed. "You'll see."
"I'm not going to like this, am I?" "Most likely not."

cuddles

"THen why MOsior, I must detest, froom the #$%@, and all the rest.
Speak in rhyme speak in time, let's see what other loser can come
with and whine"

zack

They then fly up into the sky and then the Pope said time to fly.
He pushed Roger out from the plane to show him to trust in the little
thangs. That little feather started to work. As Roger quoted "What
a Jerk"

Darson

His descent slowed by the feathers, he plummeted down, down, down,
just like Alice, and hit the water with a respounding splash! Surveying
the distant coastline before the green waves swallowed him whole,
he saw that they had flown far, far South since the part of Africa
he had been in when he shot that same infernal giraffe which had
set off this whole wacky chain of events. "Repenting your sins, then?"
her heard the Pope's voice say tinnily in his ear, followed by the
as-yet unidentified twins giggles with which the leader of the Catholic
World's every utterance seemed to be punctuated...Then he was sinking
too fast to consider these things, the feathers torn away by the
briny sea but the greasy goo with which he was still covered insulating
him from the frigid sub-Antarctic waters. Down, down, down he sank,
past undulating kingdoms of sea-monkeys, dead WWII airmen and skeletal
Afrikaner sailors mouthing mute obscenities, silverblue ribboning
oarfish singing marine showtunes, and lazy pods of whales rolling
in seismic plankton-orgies, down, down, down, the water growing darker,
colder, more pressured, bursting in his ears, into frigid and absolute
blackness which suddenly disappeared in the pink sunny glow of a
great light emanating from somewhere beneath him, just as the last
oxygen passed from his lungs into his bloodstream and he felt his
consciousness began to disintegrate...

Philip

He thought for just a moment that he heard singing, yes it was song.
It was a happy, uplifting song about the sea, and was that a mermaid?
Roger knew finally that he was truly dying ... and then ... blackness.

vanblah

The last thing he heard before his consciousness fled him was the
faint crackle of the Pope's voice in his ear, "ANd
remember — Roger — that's right, you — because even if I am the Pope,
I remember when I was a young man, the way those hormones coursed
through my body, made me think about about doing things I shouldn't
be even [crackle] considering, things that R. told us we shouldn't
do when he sent the 10 Happy Meals down to Grimace on Mt. Frenchfry,
unnnatural [crackle] things — so remember, young man — no carnal
relations between humans and Sea Monkeys, Mermaids and/or Hagfish
are to be permitted. Under any [crackle] circumstances. It's your
job now to save the worlds, yours and theirs, not to be getting your
pecker wet in the wrong genetic pool. Over and [crackle] out..."
Tee-hee, too-hoo went the twin giggles, right on cue; and
then the transistor in his ear fizzed out and Roger knew no more
for a long time.

Philip

Roger struggled out of unconsciousness slowley, moaning as he did
so. He was sprawled out on the desert sands, infront of his fire,
which had long gone out. The cooled embers still glowed slightly
from inside the teepee of smouldering branches and the smoke left
trails towards the clear skies above. Judging from the position
of the full moon, Roger deduced it was somewhere around four in the
morning. He struggled into a sitting position, rubbing his head.
It was four in the morning, but where was he? Nothing seemed to
make sense. He looked around, trying to remember how he had gotten
here. The line between dreams and reality was blurred. He remember
the Fictional Five, the Pope, Anita. But what was real? A buzzing
sound, carried on a light breeze, caught his attention and he pushed
to his feet, rubbing his eyes as he limped towards the sound. Infront
of him loamed the carcass of a wildebeast. Flies had alighted on
its head and eyes while maggots writhed on what was left of its belly.
The fog in Rogers brain began to clear. The past came flooding
back. He remembered shooting a giraffe and then in desperation running
from his hiding place to it. Well, not really running, he recalled,
more like staggering. He hadn't eaten in days, he had begun to lose
his vision, his strength, his mind. How he had reached the giraffe
he didn't know, but he had. Or at least he had reached a carcass,
and he had eaten it. The thought brought the taste of the rancid
meat back to him and he gagged. The wildebeast! He had eaten the
decomposing wildebeast, infested with maggots and worms! Things
began to make sense, he must have passed out after eating what he
thought was the giraffe, but was really a rotten wildebeast and...
Roger froze. Who had made the fire he had just been laying in front
of? What were these stange markings on his body? What sort of headress
was he wearing? ...and why was he naked? There could only be one
answer - Natives!

Lee (Aquila)

"No," said Janice, "it's me! Hahahahahahaha! You've got to do what
I say or I will hand you over to the batdooeuludruntvs! And burn
your arms up! And color you wildebeest color so the lions will eat
you!!! Hahahahahaha! Now listen here, I want you to lead the Fictional
Four to Tera Cto Munnader! There I will be waiting for them with
my deadly patented Arw Soe Fligae Tpor Siigal Adthraiushns trap!
HAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!" With that Janice vanished.

Moments later the rest of the Fictional Five appeared and pestered
Roger with questions. "Have you seen Janice?" "Where is she?" "What
is she doing?" Roger wasn't sure what to do until Kristi explained.
"Janice's mind has been taken over by her evil remote control. If
we can steal it and destroy it, she will return to her normal self.
Otherwise, she will destroy the Universe. You mortals will die and
we will lose our immortality and be confined to the Beta Universe
for the rest of our lives." So Roger decided to tell them what Janice
had said. "Oh no," said Kristi. "There is only one way to escape
an Arw Soe Fligae Tpor Siigal Adthraiushns trap!"
"What's that?" asked Roger.
The reply was unanimous. "Anita."
They soon got to Anita's house. Anita had killed all the vampires
in Manhattan with her Vampire Vacuum 3000. She was glad to help save
the universe. But just then her ankle swayed and she fell onto the
red button! Everyone screamed in horror as

Carolyn

they all got sucked up into a great black hole in space and were never
seen or heard from again! Fortunately, the ever tiresome fictional
five had mistook Roger Weaver's twin brother Bob for Roger himself
and so the twin brother was sucked up into the void with them and
Roger is still as we left him approaching the Mer Kingdom at the
bottom of the Antarctic Ocean.